The Center for the Advancement of STEM Education

PreK-12 Teachers

CASE programs provide professional development for PreK-12 teachers and hands-on experiences for PreK-12 classes.

Professional Development Opportunities for PreK-12 teachers

Sustainable Science Education in Elementary School: Calling all teachers of students in grades 3-5!

Are you looking for innovative ways to incorporate NGSS with your students?

We are looking for elementary educators to develop and pilot engaging curriculum materials focused on technologies inspired by nature (biomimicry) and intentional design of safer products and processes (green chemistry).

Teachers interested in contributing to the creation of curriculum (January-March 2017) and teachers interested in piloting materials with your students (March-June 2017) will be eligible to earn stipends from $100 for piloting to $500 for developing curriculum.

Join us at Bridgewater State University on Thursday Dec 1 from 4-6 PM for an information session along with beverages and snacks. Please click here to register. (Space is limited!)

CASE is partnering with Beyond Benign, a non-profit dedicated to green chemistry education. For more information about this organization click here.

Raising the Bar for All: Promoting Student Learning in K-8 Science

Raising the Bar for All is a Massachusetts Mathematics and Science Partnership Program awarded to Randolph Public Schools in partnership with Braintree Public Schools, Bridgewater State University and Teachers21. The mission of MMSP is to promote math and science content knowledge for teachers of K-12 students. As part of the Raising the Bar for All program, BSU will offer three graduate level courses to K-8 teachers from Randolph and Braintree schools. PHYS 560-GR1 Special Topics in Physical Science: Forces, Fields and Energy was offered in the fall of 2016. GEOL560 Special Topics in Earth Science: Human Impact on Earth Systems will be offered in the spring semester of 2017. A Chemistry course will be offered in the summer of 2017.

Spring 2017 Course Offering

Dates: Face-to-face course dates are January 24, 31; February 7, 14, 28; March 4 (Saturday), 14, 21, 28; April 4, 11; May 9 (final exam). There will be an additional 9 hours of online course work. Teachers will work collaboratively on curriculum for an additional 24 hours between April 11 and May 9, for which they will be compensated.

Cost:None. Teachers will earn 3 graduate credits from BSU and will be paid the district hourly rate for 24 hours of PLC meetings.

Course description:

Our planet is wonderfully complex with many interacting and intricate systems. These systems operate over a huge range of time and spatial scales: from milliseconds to millennia and from puny to planet-wide. For example, precipitation and temperature patterns influence the types of environments in different regions. The ocean moves heat around our planet and can affect the weather on a global scale. Sediment layers can form in a single flood and preserve a snapshot of time for millions of years. Understanding these systems and their interactions can help us understand how humans are affecting them today.

In this course participants will explore and gain a deeper understanding of how our planet works. Topics include Earth’s interior layers and their interactions; plate tectonics and the changing surface of our planet; ocean circulation; weather patterns and the water cycle; geologic resources; Earth’s climate; and climate change. Participants will use geologic data to understand the evidence that scientists use to develop theories about Earth’s past and how it works today. Participants will also develop their ability to collect scientific data, analyze and display data in a meaningful way, interpret their results, and draw conclusions based on data. By the end of this course participants will develop curricula aligned to the 2016 Massachusetts Earth and Space Science standards.

Register for this course:

The first step in the registration process is to submit information via http://tinyurl.com/GEOL-560-2017S. Please carefully read the guidelines below prior to completing the form.

Please note that this course is currently restricted to teachers from Randolph and Braintree. If you do not teach in these districts, you may still submit information. We will contact you a few weeks before the start date to let you know if there are any open seats.

When submitting information, you will need to already have a BSU Banner ID. If you do not have a Banner ID, please follow the guidelines below.

To apply to the course as a non-degree student, please visit bridgew.edu/grad-non-degree and follow the instructions there. Once you complete this process, you will receive an email with your Banner ID in one to two business days. Please submit your Banner ID and other information requested http://tinyurl.com/GEOL-560-2017S. We will then submit your information to the registrar’s office.

To apply to the MAT program before registering for this course, please first visit bridgew.edu/admissions/graduate/apply and select the "Secondary Education: Professional Licensure (MAT)" tab to view admissions requirements. To register for a Banner ID, please visit www.bridgew.edu/apply and click on the graduate link. After you create your account, please click the link to start an application and choose graduate. Please choose "I intend to earn a degree or certificate” and select the appropriate academic discipline. Use code GRCASE at the end to waive the application fee. Your graduate school application will be reviewed once all components have been submitted. Please note the application deadline for the spring semester was October 1, however, the Graduate School will accommodate completed applications received prior to December 1. Please note that you will not receive a Banner ID until your application is reviewed and you are accepted into the program. Once you have a Banner ID, please provide it along with the following information requested http://tinyurl.com/GEOL-560-2017S. We will then submit your information to the registrar’s office.

Class visits to BSU:

Middle and high school students can experience hands-on inquiry based science during class visits to CASE’s outreach laboratories. Hands-on activities include: Crucial Concentration, Mystery of the Crooked Cell, Lab Larceny and Does this Parking Lot Look Green to You? For more information and to schedule a visit for your middle or high school class, please visit CityLab and Watershed Access Lab websites.

K-12 teachers may also schedule visits to BSU’s Observatory for private viewing events and the following workshops: Impact Cratering, Spectroscopy, Moons in Motion, Scale of the Solar System, and What’s in the Sky? For more information and to schedule a visit for your K-12 class, please visit the Observatory website.

EarthView visits to your school:

BSU's EarthView program uses a 20-foot inflatable globe to teach K-12 students world geography. For more information on having the EarthView program come to your school, please call Maura Whittemore at 508.531.2575 or email: mwhittemore@bridgew.edu.

Global Civic Education & Leadership Publications

Van Leuven, Nancy, Deniz Zeynep Leuenberger, Danielle Newton, and Tammy Esteves. (2011). Reaching Citizen 2.0: How Government Uses Social Media to Send Public Messages during Times of Calm and Times of Crisis. Submitted.

Leuenberger, Deniz. (2010). Finance Reform and Performance-Based Budgeting in the United Arab Emirates. Ed. Charles E. Menifield in Comparative Budgeting: An Examination of Public Budgeting Across the World. Jones and Bartlett.